Sep. 29, 2013
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House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio on Thursday. / J. Scott Applewhite, AP

by The Editorial Board, USATODAY

by The Editorial Board, USATODAY

Normally, big showdowns over budgets and debt limits are fought over spending, taxes and the deficit.

This time, things are different. House Republicans are threatening a government shutdown - and, more ominously, a default of U.S. Treasury debt - over issues that have little to do with the major drivers of spending and borrowing.

Their list of demands is topped by ObamaCare, which they want defunded or delayed. They also want the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico built, more oil drilling on federal lands, softer coal and carbon regulations, and a rework of the 2010 Wall Street reform law, among other things.

Not on the list, and not in the stopgap spending bill that House Republicans have already passed in their chamber, is any significant fiscal restraint. The House bill would keep discretionary spending at current levels, but it would allow major entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security to continue on their unsustainable courses.

Defunding ObamaCare - for all the Tea Party hyperventilating - would not yield much savings. Next year, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it will amount to about 1.3% of federal spending. As it ramps up fully, it will grow to about 3.3%.

That's a pretty small sliver of government to justify sacrificing the financial credibility of the United States.

What's more, because defunding ObamaCare would also defund the offices that collect the taxes that more than pay for it, the action would actually increase the deficit.

The latest Republican approach, unveiled Thursday, is equal parts bizarre and troubling. It demands - through threats of unleashing terrific economic harm - the accomplishments that the GOP has been unable to achieve through the normal process because it has fared poorly in three of the past four elections.

It also represents a missed opportunity. Though the debt limit should never be used as a bargaining chip, the budget year that comes to an end Monday night offers a prime opportunity to negotiate deficit reduction.

In the first two years after regaining the majority in the House of Representatives in 2010, Republicans sought to brand themselves as the party of fiscal discipline, with Speaker John Boehner and others negotiating deals around fiscal and calendar year deadlines.

As of this spring, deals hammered out between President Obama and Republicans had shaved $2.5 trillion from the deficit, with most coming from spending cuts. The cuts were not ideal; they came too much from core government functions, including defense, and not enough from major entitlement programs. But they were at least cuts, and very substantial ones at that.

Now Republicans have abandoned the fiscal-restraint approach in favor of what might be called the tantrum approach - do what we demand or we will blow ourselves and the economy up!

This is a loss for the American people, who have a right to expect that their democracy works for them and that public servants of goodwill seek to solve problems, not create them. It is also a loss for the Republican Party, which now looks like it stands for nothing other than petulance and partisan obstruction.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view - a unique USA TODAY feature.